Common sense in advertising

Although some of the ‘road safety’ messages we see are amusing, surely a more realistic, sensible and mature approach needs to be adopted with a Government that tells everybody the real reason why people are still dying in unacceptably high numbers on our roads.

We are sure some of the messages like, “Don’t drive like a cock / a wanker / a knob” give us all a bit of a giggle. However the infantile sexual overtones are somewhat concerning. Yes, they are pictures that require us to fill in the blanks but their intention comes through loud and clear. Now we have the ‘Slow down schnookums’ and other ridiculous and insulting banners being erected everywhere. Will these idiots every learn and grow up?

Anyway can anybody actually define how a cock, a wanker or a knob actually drives? Probably not! It is time for our Government to grow up and treat the public with a little more respect, tell them the real reason why fatalities and injuries are occurring and stop treating the whole thing as a big revenue collecting joke!

One can only imagine the deserved moral outrage if these inappropriate terms were instead related to women’s sexual issues and not a man’s. Neither are acceptable.

There are also some other classically ridiculous adverts on TV.

The woman pedestrian victim

This one is where a woman walks straight out on to the road without checking to the right, then the left and the right again prior to crossing the road.

All of us are trying to teach our children road safety from a very young age. Of course in the advert the inevitable happens and the woman is struck by the car. There is no doubt that many young children are watching this advert and thinking this is the new way to cross the road … just walk straight out on to the road without checking first.

This advert continues with a Police Officer walking alongside a slow motion replay version of the car / pedestrian collision explaining how by going 5 kilometres below the posted legal speed limit the woman would have still been hit but not injured as seriously.

No doubt this Police Officer was ordered to take part in this advert, however one doubts whether he had the orthopaedic qualifications to make a very technical judgement of this nature. Also there are many other factors to be taken into consideration in any collision.

For example the frontal configuration of the vehicle (bull bars, spot lights, impact point/s, truck, 4 wheel drive or low sports car etc.), also the gross vehicle weight, road conditions, vehicle condition and driver experience. Add to this the age and size of the pedestrians. It all just points to the fact that this is another tax payer funded propaganda piece of rubbish trying to justify the use of speed detection devices to rip more money from a vulnerable public.

There is no broad brush approach that will identify collision injuries.

It is also prudent to mention that in relation to this particular advert that if the driver had been going 5 kilometres above the posted speed limit he would have probably missed this person altogether before she stepped on to the road!

Perhaps the Government would be better advised to concentrate their advertising dollar on ensuring people were aware of the safe way to cross roads instead of once again putting every incident that occurs into the ‘speeding’ and ‘Speed Kills’ category to justify the insidious use of speed cameras and their scam fines.

Then we have the Creepers advert!

Really … who are they trying to fool with this one! This is an advert totally and purely aimed at trying to justify stealing money from people who are caught out, usually accidentally, travelling at 3 or 4 kilometres an hour above the posted speed limit.

The insidious thing about this advert is that when the person who is driving the ‘offending’ vehicle ‘rockets’ past another vehicle doing 2 or 3 kilometres above the speed limit he turns to look at the other driver and his face starts to turn black and he appears to have blood coming out of his mouth. Obviously we must now all watch out for black vampires doing 63 kilometres an hour in a 60 zone! The only creeps are those in Government who persist with this ridiculous scam!